


There's A Way for Us

by LetsJustWrite



Series: Families Are Built, Not Broken [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Neglect, F/F, Food Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentions of drugs, Modern Era, Swearing, Éponine adopts gavroche, Éponine adopts her siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-19 16:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetsJustWrite/pseuds/LetsJustWrite
Summary: She doesn't care about her parents being there, or all the reminders of her past life. She's here only for her siblings-to get them out, to get them safe, to get them happy.





	1. Getting There

Eponine grips the wheel tighter. A white van with way more people than it was supposed to hold almost crashes into her and she swerves hard. Curses them out. Then she remembers that Valjean is in the seat next to her.

When she looked over to him he doesn’t seem embarrassed by her cursing (which is good, she wasn’t going to stop cursing because a full-grown adult didn’t know how to handle it) but he is slightly pale and asks her if she wants him to take over the driving.

“No!” she snaps. On the way back he was going to drive so that she could give all her attention over to her little siblings but right now she felt like she needed to do something, not just sit there, thinking.

Her therapist would probably say that she needed to let herself feel but she could let herself feel later, when she wasn’t about to be in charge of two vulnerable kids (because she knew now that they were vulnerable, that she had also been vulnerable at their age, though she’d thought that she hadn’t been; after all, she’d been peddling drugs for her parents at that age, a grown up world-and the thought of that makes her grip her wheel tighter because she doesn’t know what sort of situations her parents have been putting Zel and Gav into). When she wasn’t about to go into her parents house.

Which is why Valjean is really there. He’s big and strong: intimidating enough to make her parents and their cronies back off while they get Zel and Gav out. And if they do try anything he can act on that intimidation. Her shoulders relax a little.


	2. Chapter 2

They get home and neither of the kids have spoken much. In fact, Eponine thinks the only thing Azelma has said so far is her hamburger order. Gavroche has spoken more but mostly he just stared out of the window.

She shows them where to take off their shoes and then leads them to the rooms she and Cosette and Marius had put so much work into making. She tried to remember their favorite colors and made sure to put locks on the doors. All the furniture is from Ikea-white with sets of drawers everywhere. She hopes having those drawers to hide things in will make them feel safer.

Azelma doesn’t say anything while she shows her her room. Just nods and locks the door when Eponine goes out. 

Gavroche fiddles with his lock while she she shows him his room but when she finishes he speaks.

“What about a Gameboy?”

“What about a Gameboy?” she says carefully. She’d given Gavroche an old Gameboy once, when she’d still been using, but that had been years ago. She didn’t know if his question now had anything to do with that.

“Nothing,” he mumbles and looks down at the floor. Fuck. She’s messed up.

“No, really, what about a Gameboy?” she says.

“I want one. My old one got broken. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just hid it near the dumpster for safekeeping and it rained!”

“Gav, it’s okay.” She hadn’t expected him to be able to keep the Gameboy until now. And even if she had she wasn’t an asshole douche who would get mad at a kid for making a mistake. “But I can’t get you a new one.” She moves closer to him and he flinches. Fuck. Fuck her parents. Fuck them and their abusive assholery. She moves back again. “Sorry. But I don’t think the stores sell it anymore. But we can get you a phone. We were planning to anyways. So you can call us if you need us. They have games on them.”

She doesn’t know what she’s done but Gavroche shrugs and walks out. She hears him go into his and Azelma’s bathroom and lock the door.

“I’m such a shithead,” she says to herself because nothing has been going right so far. She knew that there were going to be problems, she knew that Zel and Gav were going to be messed up from her parents, but Gav walking out on her felt like too much. She had done something wrong and she didn’t know what.

At least he came down for dinner when she called. 

They both come down to the dining room. Azelma is hiding behind her and Gavroche is lagging but at least they come down. She was worried that they would refuse and then they wouldn’t eat. And they both needed to eat.

They sit down and Marius uncovers the crock pot and, boy, does that smell delicious. They all take turns with the chores but Marius can definitely cook the best.

“Do you want some?” she asks Azelma and when she nods she spoons a heap onto her plate. She turns to Gavroche to ask him but he’s staring straight ahead, bouncing up and down in his seat.

“Where’s Valjean?” he suddenly blurts out.

Cosette smiles at him. “He went home.”

“Is he around here often?” The tone of his question is almost a demand.

“Yeah. He’s my dad. Well, my adoptive dad. My real dad left my mom when she got pregnant with me. She died when I was very young.”

“I don’t have a dad either” Marius says suddenly. “Or-or a mom.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Um, they’re both dead.”

“Cool,” says Gavroche, already moved on to taking food, apparently comfortable now that he knew Valjean wasn’t here and that was going to be hard. Eponine didn’t mind telling Valjean to stay away for a while though he usually came over a few days a week. It was weird but honestly, what did she or Marius know about good parental figures? Hers were hers and Marius had grown up with his grandfather and aunt. They hadn’t been as bad as her parents but they were bad enough that he disowned them the minute he turned eighteen.

Both her siblings shovel food in their mouth like they’re still starving so they finish before the adults. Azelma leaves the moment the last noodle leaves her plate, still in her mouth, but Gavroche stays on a little bit more, enough time for Eponine to ask him if he wants more.

“Yes.” He nods quickly and reaches for the serving spoon. Half-way through his second serving he reminds her, his mouth full, that she’d said they were having ice cream for dessert.

“After dinner,” she says and looks pointedly at his plate because she wants him to eat, to fill out, which she knows makes her sound like the evil witch from Hansel and Gretel but he’s so skinny it’s scary.  
When he finishes she leads him into the kitchen and shows him where the ice cream and all of the food is kept.

“You can take anything from the fridge or the freezer or the cabinets. At any time of day. Whatever, whenever, your choice,” she tells him because she doesn’t want him to feel like he’s hungry but can’t get food. She’ll go upstairs after dinner and tell Azelma the same thing.

Gavroche nods and hugs the ice cream to his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

That night she knows she won’t be able to fall asleep. She gets into pyjamas anyways because apparently keeping the same schedule every night is important to falling asleep but she just dicks around on her phone. 

Cosette comes into her room, maybe half an hour later. “Hey, Ep,” she whispers.

“The kids asleep?” Eponine answers because that’s what’s on top of her mind and she’s stressed enough she’s been thinking of texting her sponsor so fuck human niceties.

“I don’t know.” Eponine’s in one of the two chairs she keeps in room but Cosette sits on the bed. “But they’re safe.”

Eponine almost grunts but she stops it because Cosette is right and Cosette does know what it’s like to be the scared kid in a new home, except she didn’t really even know Valjean when she came to his house.

“I know,” she says instead. “But I’m scared they’re not.”

Cosette nods and puts her feet up on Eponine’s lap. “I get it. When Marius was-you know. I knew he was safe but I couldn’t see him and I felt so unsure. You were there for me, though.” But that just makes Eponine feel worse because it doesn’t matter how many times he reassures her that it wasn’t Eponine always feels that Marius’ leaving then was her fault.

She pushes Cosette’s feet off of her lap and climbs up on the bed beside her to spoon her from behind. “I love you,” she mumbles after a while into Cosette’s hair.

“I love you, too,” Cosette mumbles back, half-asleep already.

Eponine herself doesn’t fall asleep for a good while but things feel less bad when she’s holding Cosette, though she vows to text her sponsor in the morning.


End file.
